


Santa Baby (stick an agent under the tree for me)

by soufflegirl91



Series: Anon Prompt Gift Exchange 2019 [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Fluff and Humour, M/M, MI6 Cafe Anon Prompt Gift Exchange, Mall Santa - Freeform, Q is very tired and has no excuses, not even trying to treat this one seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21886006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soufflegirl91/pseuds/soufflegirl91
Summary: After a very long week, Q tells Santa Claus what he really wants for Christmas.Will he get what's on his Christmas list?
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Anon Prompt Gift Exchange 2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564555
Comments: 32
Kudos: 165
Collections: Mi6 Cafe Prompt Fills





	Santa Baby (stick an agent under the tree for me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [christinefromsherwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/gifts).



> I make no apologies. 
> 
> This one is unbeta-ed, so mistakes are my own. 
> 
> The shopping centre and John Lewis are real places, but I don’t think John Lewis have their own Santa’s Grotto. This fic does not represent a real Westfield shopping experience. 
> 
> Written for the prompt:  
> A Christmas Miracle? AU - Q wished upon a star (or wrote a joke-y email to Santa Claus?? something similar) that he’d get Bond for Christmas (either back alive from a mission, or just interested in him) - the next day Bond arrives, backs him up against a door and goes on to act out one of Q's workplace daydreams - cue happiness and panic: IS iT REAL? (is Santa real?) Is Q magic?

It had been a long week. 

It had been a long week, and it was only Thursday. 

Monday set the ball rolling, with a 4am emergency that had Q rolling out of bed and into Q branch in the first clothes he’d found. Those clothes happened to be ripped skinny jeans and an old IT Crowd t-shirt that read “have you tried turning it off and on again?” It _was_ 4am, after all, and the dress code flew out of the window in the face of an emergency. 

That everyone in his branch side-eyed him for having the audacity to own clothing that wasn’t office wear was one thing. 

That Bond, picking up his kit on the way to pull 003’s arse out of the fire in Yemen, gave him such a filthy grin was quite another. 

And did he _have_ to follow it up with that comment?! 

_“Well, Q, if I’d known this was how you dressed at home, I’d have found an excuse to come around.”_

The bastard! 

Q knew he wasn’t exactly subtle with his crush on Bond (R certainly didn’t give up on making fun of it!), but did Bond really have to be so _callous_ about it? Q knew he didn’t have a chance with the agent, and honestly, he was fine with that. But he could have done without Bond throwing it in his face. 

Monday’s spectacular start led to 64 hours of trying to get 003, Aaron Reynolds out of the mess he’d made for himself in Sana’a. With 007 on the ground, they managed to achieve the mission objective and both get out alive, but 003 was going to be out of commission while he recovered from a bullet to the elbow. 

Bond, being Bond, had made sure Reynolds was safely on the RAF medical helicopter Q had forcefully re-routed, and had promptly disappeared off the face of the earth. 

Had Q mentioned that Bond was a bastard?!

Q had finally made it home to his flat and rolled into bed late on Wednesday night, only to have to sit through a whole day of budget meetings. 

Whoever in Accounting arranged a full day of budget meetings for the day before Christmas Eve was going to come back to work after Christmas and find their user profile translated into Swahili, all of their passwords changed and their desk phone ringtone changed to Baby Shark. 

Sometimes, Q pretended that he wasn’t petty. Today was not that day. 

So here he was, on the evening of the 23rd of December, having spent less than 12 hours in his own home since stupid o’clock on Monday morning. It was a good job he’d set up automatic feeders and a self-cleaning litter tray for Fred and George, his two ginger tomcats. This happened far too often.

The tube was rammed, last minute shoppers and tourists here for an “authentic British Christmas” squished up against the doors with tired workers. Q hated the tube at this time of year, because he could never count on the usual rush hour predictions. 

What was worse was that he had to fight his way through the bloody Westfield centre. He could have walked around it, but that was an extra half a mile and Q was _tired_. 

Another year, and he’d be able to move closer to work. There was no point moving now and having to pay extra fees on his mortgage, after all. If he’d _known_ he was going to get promoted south of the bloody river, he wouldn’t have gone for the 5 years fixed. But alas. 

Bloody Stratford. 

It was that time of day when all of the shoppers were making their way out of the shops and towards food or home. Unfortunately for Q, that meant that the centre walkways were almost as crowded as the tube had been. It was like a swarm of over-sized ants running towards honey. 

After the seventeenth person had pushed past him in the space of three minutes and 21 seconds (no, he wasn’t _actively_ counting, he just had an exceedingly accurate internal clock), Q had had enough. 

He ducked inside the next shop he passed, which happened to be John Lewis. The department store was always good for a browse around whilst waiting for the crowds to disperse. Maybe he could even buy a last-minute Christmas present for Tanner. 

Making his way through the kids section towards the gifts section, he noticed a rather dishevelled-looking elf overseeing a dwindling queue of exhausted parents with small children waiting eagerly to see santa.

Later, Q never could tell whether it was the exhaustion, the stress, or the overwhelming sense of “oh, fuck it” that made him do it. 

He joined the queue.

The dishevelled elf, who’s name tag informed Q that her name was Lizzie, gave him a strange look. 

“Sorry, sir. We don’t allow parents to hold spaces for their children. You’ll have to come back with your child.”

Q frowned.

“No child, just me.” 

The strange look somehow got stranger. A few of the parents in front turned around. 

“You… want to speak to Santa?” 

The parents turned away quickly, and shuffled their children further forward, away from the strange man who wanted to talk to Santa. The children, of course, were completely unsurprised. After all, who _didn’t_ want to talk to Santa? Adults were weird, sometimes. 

“Is there an upper age limit?”

“Well... no. It’s just, we don’t usually get… adults.” 

The elf sounded like this was the strangest thing she’d ever seen. If he carried a pocket mirror, Q would have forcibly reminded her that she was dressed _as an elf._

Q stared at her. His face said “yes, and…?” well enough not to need the words. 

“... would you like the gift, as well as the consultation? Gifts are five pounds, but guaranteed value of at least ten” the elf asked, bravely attempting to recover _some_ professionalism. 

“No, thank you. Just a brief chat.” 

“It’s donation only, then,” she shook the bucket she was carrying and Q dutifully dropped a few quid in, “what name shall I give to Santa?”

“Q.”

“Just… Q?” The frown was back.

“Just Q” Confirmed ‘Just’ Q. 

Thankfully, their awkward exchange was interrupted by Santa’s previous guest (along with their hassled parent) exiting the grotto, gift in hand and chattering away. Lizzie the elf excused herself to introduce the next child in line. 

One of the parents in the queue tutted. Q resisted the urge to hack their bluetooth and change their ringtone to Crazy Frog. 

Nope. _Not_ petty. Definitely not petty. 

Thankfully, or perhaps unfortunately, there were only three children in front of him in the queue. Before Q’s exhausted, fed up brain could talk him out of this crazy activity, it was his turn to go inside. 

“Ho ho ho! Welcome, Q! Why don’t you sit down and tell Santa what you want for Christmas?” 

It was an admirable effort. Lizzie the elf had obviously warned Santa that there was a lone grown-up waiting for him. Q fleetingly realised they must have thought he still _believed_ in Santa Claus. It was better than the alternative, he supposed.

Thankful that the days of children being expected to sit on Santa’s lap were behind them, because wouldn’t _that_ have been awkward, Q perched on the child-sized chair next to the pensioner in the red suit. This one even came with his own beard. Q was impressed. 

“Tell me, Q, have you been naughty or nice this year?”

Q, for some reason unknown even to him, actually thought about it. 

“Well, I suppose it depends. If you do something naughty, but it’s for the greater good and is aimed to protect the national interest, surely that counts as being nice from a different perspective.” 

Santa stared. 

“So… I suppose I would say I’ve been… nice?” Q finished lamely. He hadn’t _intended_ for it to come out as a question, but apparently the idea that Santa decided who had been naughty or nice had some merit. At least it did when faced with the _actual_ Santa. Or rather, an old man dressed up as the _actual_ Santa. 

What was he thinking? Q knew full well that Santa didn’t really exist! 

Bloody hell, he was even more tired than he had thought. 

“...Good.” Santa continued after an awkward pause. “And what would you like for Christmas this year, Q?”

“Well…” Q considered.

And this was where it all got out of hand. 

“I suppose I could say I want peace on Earth, but then I’d be out of a job. Or the newest technology, but I end up making a lot of that myself, anyway. Nobody _really_ wants a pony. Or more accurately, they don’t want a pony once they realise they have to clean up the poo.” 

Santa was staring again. 

“But I suppose what I really want…” Q trailed off thoughtfully. 

“Yes?” Santa interjected, eager to get this very strange man out of his grotto as quickly as possible.

“What I _really_ want is for that bloody _idiot_ to stop gallivanting off after every bloody… business trip… before I know he’s safe and to just _come home_!” 

Q had nearly said mission, but caught himself at the last moment. That would have been an awkward thing to explain to M!

“He’s always pretending he’s fine, when I know he’s not! If he just _came home_ once in a while, maybe he’d see that he has friends here! People around who _actually care about him_ and want him to _stay alive_ ! But nooooo, he buggers off, with his suits, and his girls and his… his _ice crystals_ he calls eyes, while the rest of us sit here like idiots waiting to know if he’s still breathing!” 

Q inhaled deeply. Ranting really left a person out of breath. 

Santa looked a bit shell-shocked. 

“So. Yes. If it’s not too much to ask, I’d like my… friend to come home for Christmas.” Q finished hesitantly, but then continued before he could stop himself. “Because even a semi-retired man dressed up in a red suit pretending to be someone who _doesn’t exist_ can’t make the asshole realise I have feelings for him!” 

Santa cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Well, I’ll… see what I can do.” 

Clearly, Santa was reconsidering his cushy job promising impossible gifts to small children for a few weeks every year. Q expected him to sound a _bit_ more certain with the whole “saying you’ll get something your parents have no intention of buying” thing, but who was he to judge?! 

“See that you do.” Q said primly.

Without prompting, he stood from the undersized chair and made his way out of the grotto. 

When he was about twenty paces away, he stopped.

_What the hell had he just done?!_

Q groaned, realising that yes, he really had just _paid_ to speak to Father bloody Christmas and had asked for _bloody Bond_ to come home safely and, just to put the icing on the cake, had implied that even Santa Claus couldn’t make Bond realise that Q _fancied the pants off him._

Well. There was only one thing for it.

Q needed sleep.

But first, wine.

All the wine. 

-

The next morning, after a long evening of seriously questioning his life choices, Q made it to work bright and early. He was wearing his favourite Doctor Who christmas jumper, because even Quartermasters were allowed to dress for the season. 

It being Christmas Eve, there was only a skeleton crew working. MI6 didn’t come to a complete halt for the festive season, but the only double oh missions going on right now were long-term sleeper missions. Still, there was always the chance that some emergency or other would need feet on the ground without delay, and Q branch had to be ready for that. 

Q, not having any family to visit over Christmas, had given R the next week off and volunteered to be on call, if not in branch, over the holidays. His trusted techs didn’t need their overlord peering over their shoulder every minute, but he made a point of showing up at some point every day. If only to make sure they hadn’t got carried away and created an animatronic reindeer out of spare parts. Again. 

Poor Coxen (or was it Vimet? Q could never remember. The vote to name it had been tied between Comet and Vixen, so, naturally, they had settled on an abomination). The little robot spent its life locked in a storage cupboard, only to be brought out at the Christmas party and then quickly switched off again once everyone remembered how terrifying it was. 

Every year, Tanner invited the “lonely singles of MI6 upper management” (as he called M, Moneypenny and Q) for Christmas with his family. Q usually tried to show his face for a bit, even managing to stay for dinner last year, before 007 had managed to lock himself in his target’s vault and needed Q to get him out. 

Tanner had quietly told Q that he invited Bond over every year, too, but the recalcitrant agent never showed. If he wasn’t out of the country causing chaos, he hid in whatever bolt hole he used when he wanted to hide from anything resembling festive cheer. 

Q started the day by making a cup of his favourite Christmas tea. Earl Grey took a break every now and then to be replaced with the delicious black tea, cardamom, cinnamon and ginger blend that he favoured at this time of year. 

He had just returned to his office, when the door slammed shut behind him. 

The door that Q _had_ thought was being held open by a doorstop. 

Never one to show fear, Q calmly put his mug down and picked up a pen. Not just any pen, this one was a prototype taser. 

He turned, ready to prod the intruder somewhere really painful.

And stopped. 

“Bond? What are you-?”

Before Q could finish the question, Bond grabbed Q by the front of his ugly jumper, hauled him around so that his back was up against the door and...

Kissed him. 

Q was being _kissed_ by James bloody Bond! 

This had to be a dream!

It couldn’t possibly be real. There was no way that suave, suited, _stupid_ 007 was really kissing _Q! In Q’s office!_

Surely, he was still in bed, having drunk too much wine the night before. Any moment now, he was going to wake up with Fred sat on his head and George attacking his feet. 

Q’s body, seemingly unaware or uncaring of Q’s mental crisis, responded to the kiss enthusiastically. Before long, they had to pull away, gasping for breath.

“What are you-?” Q tried again, only to be interrupted.

“Coming home for Christmas. If you’ll have me.” Bond, despite his ninja kiss attack a few moments ago, sounded unsure.

Home for Christmas. 

_Home._

Suddenly, Q remembered last night. 

He remembered asking that ridiculous Santa impersonator for Bond to come home. 

Oh, good grief, what if it had been _the actual Santa Claus._

Wait, no. That was ridiculous. Santa Claus didn’t exist. 

Did he?

“Q?” 

Oops. 

Q had been so busy having an internal meltdown that he hadn’t responded to Bond. 

Hadn’t told him that Q would happily have Bond for Christmas. And every other day of the year. Many times, in many rooms, and over many different pieces of furniture. 

Bond was stood there, looking anxious and uncertain, which was a look that Q should never have to see on Bond’s face, so Q did the only thing he could think of to make it better.

He kissed that look right off his face. 

It took a long time, and a lot of effort, but Q accepted the challenge.


End file.
